Preheat the oven 350F/180C

Line the bottom of a 9inch/23cm springform with parchment paper. Butter the sides. Set the pan on a baking sheet to protect against leakage.

Slice the lemons and have them to hand.

The first set of three apples top the cake. Peel, halve, and core them. Now slice each half into six neat slices, or as neatly as you can. Place in a medium bowl and spritz with lemon to avoid discoloring.

The second set of three apples go into the cake itself and are diced. Peel, halve, and core these, then dice into 1/3 inch/8mm squares, or as near to as you can. Place these in a second medium bowl, and spritz with remaining lemon.

Melt butter and set aside to cool.

While butter cools, either grate or break up the almond paste into tiny bits. Place in mixer bowl. Fit with beater attachment and mix with salt. Add cooled butter. Mix until blended, about 2 minutes. Add sugar and almond extract and beat to blend.

Add eggs, one at a time, allowing at least 30 second between each addition.

In a 4 quart/4L bowl, sift or whisk together the flour, cornstarch, and baking powder. Gently fold dry ingredients into the batter with the large metal spoon. Fold the diced apples into the batter.

Scrape the batter into the pan. Arrange the sliced apples on top, pushing them down gently. You don’t want to submerge them.

Place the baking sheet/pan in the oven and bake the cake for about one hour and ten minutes; my cake took a bit longer. Cake is done when a tester in the middle comes out clean–be sure you aren’t hitting apples–and the top is browned and pulling away from sides of the pan. The cake will look and smell done; trust your nose and instincts.

Remove from oven and allow to cool. While cake is still warm, heat jam in a small pot until bubbling (don’t let it burn!). Pour or brush over the cake.

Once cake is cool, unclip sides.

Apple Marzipan Cake keeps well, covered, at room temperature up to four days. After that, if any is left, either refrigerate or freeze, well-wrapped, and heat before eating.

Notes:

I always set springform pans on baking sheets lest they leak batter: better to clean up a baking sheet than an oven floor.

The original recipe calls for apricot jam. I used home-made strawberry, and it worked beautifully. If you want to make strawberry jam, follow the cherry recipe in above link, but baking strawberries for 90 minutes instead of two hours. The rest of recipe is same.

Marzipan and almond paste are not the same item. You want almond paste, which is made from pure ground almonds and most often sold in 7-ounce tubes, though some markets sell it fresh in tubs.